Parliamentarians’ debate of a lifetime

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 6

Parliamentarians’ debate of a lifetime

PA Wellington In a new twist to an old problem, members of Parliament struggled yesterday over the question, “What is the meaning of lifetime?” The sticky problem which great and little minds have agonised over for centuries, arose with a question from the Opposition member of Parliament for Bay of Islands, Mr John Carter, who asked how many " lifetime licences one person was entitled to. “One,” replied the Transport Under-Secre-tary, Mr Fred Gerbic. Mr Gerbic was then challenged to explain how Mrs D. M. Trigg, of Kaitaia, had been sent

tur cc« He said it was not so much that she had been sent three, but that her original licence had been renewed. Mr Carter said later in a press statement that because Mrs Trigg held classes of driver’s licence which required a doctor’s medical certificate each year to retain, it was the policy of the Ministry of Transport in Whangarei to issue a new lifetime licence each time a medical certificate was presented. In a letter to Mr Carter, Mrs Trigg said the explanation given by the Ministry in Whangarei for' this was that because each renewal cost $lO, and because

elderly people also had to have annual licence renewals, they felt they were not getting anything for their $lO so the Ministry was issuing a new licence each time. She said she asked the M.O.T. whether, if she stopped paying' the $lO, they would stop sending her licences. They said no. “I now have three lifetime licences issued in the one year that they have been available,” Mrs Trigg said. Mr Carter said the “bureaucratic triplication” should be ended before the integrity of the lifetime driver’s licence system was further undermined.